At a time House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., says he is "confident and optimistic" Congress will pass more funding for Ukraine, the White House would not confirm to Newsmax whether the president has spoken to him on the details of and price tag on the supplemental package.
"I will have to get back to you on whether there was a specific conversation with the speaker on the supplemental," National Security spokesman John Kirby said Thursday afternoon.
Kirby, who spoke at the regular briefing for White House correspondents, did say, "We have had numerous discussions and briefings with members of Congress and staff members on the importance of the supplemental."
But he did leave little doubt that the White House wanted a supplemental that included what he called "all four buckets — Israel, Ukraine, Indo-Pacific and border security" rather than the "stand-alone" packages sought by a growing number of House Republicans and reportedly favored by Johnson himself.
"The reason it's a supplemental is they are all urgent," Kirby told us.
He concluded by stressing that it was imperative for Congress to take action before the holidays.
"As I said earlier, we are running out of runway for Ukraine and I would say the same thing about Israel," said Kirby. "We've had some existing authority to support Israel. But that well is not endlessly deep either."
Discussion on the amount in the supplemental has varied from $47 billion to $60 billion.
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